PR firms cash in on ACA rollout woes

It may have been a debacle, but there is one upside to the glitch-plagued rollout of the health care website: It’s become a powerful case study for crisis management consultants and their clients of what not to do.

In Chicago, H + A International, a communications firm, delivered its customers a 15-point diagnosis of the administration’s handling of the crisis. That led one of its clients to temporarily halt the introduction of a new software product for engineers at a recent trade show of 30,000 people.

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In San Francisco, Singer Associates, a public relations company, used the Obama crisis to prevail upon major real estate and environmental remediation clients to beta test their online programs before launching them. Sam Singer, the president, said, “A lot more clients are now asking for an extra set of eyes on things before they roll them out.’’

And in Boston, the CHT group, with clients in industries ranging from health care to electronics, published a guide titled “Obamacare and Health Insurance Exchanges: A PR Makeover’’ with tips large and small – from holding more news conferences to creating an infographic explaining the benefits of the new law — for what the White House should have done to tamp down the fallout.

Far from the world of government and politics, the botched launch of Healthcare.gov has become an instant classic. It has replaced such notorious bungles as New Coke and the BP oil spill as a real time example in the crisis management world of how not to respond when everything goes wrong. Experts are eagerly cashing in on the administration’s missteps, offering critiques in private interactions with clients, as well as publishing blog posts and op-eds on the basic rules of crisis management that were not followed.

“I have to believe there are lots of people in our business who are looking at this and saying, ‘Gee, these are the five things they did wrong. Here are the things I would’ve done differently,’ ” Marlin Collingwood, the president of CHT, told POLITICO. “This will be taught in a lot of business and marketing courses, and probably just as importantly in a lot of technology courses on how do you launch a new product. You certainly don’t do it like this.”

Among the many post mortems from H+A International: “While admitting they screwed up and apologizing for the problems, they should have ALSO reassured the large number of people who went to the web site seeking insurance. Although this fact was mentioned, that messaging should have been repeated and reinforced whenever possible.’’

Roger Halligan, the CEO of H + A International, sent this pointed email to his clients: “I’m sure you’re familiar with the Obamacare website problems and how it was evidently launched before it should’ve been launched. I know we’ve discussed in the past preparing new product announcements at trade shows. Just a friendly reminder that we should be sure our technology is ready for the market and can be supported if customers want to learn more.’’

Liz Wainger of Wainger Group in Rockville, Md., which represents architecture firms, private schools and philanthropies, said the problems that plagued the administration over the last two months can happen in any industry.

“Where it’s been instructive is that this is something people could really see, a tangible example everyone is talking about,” she said. “These are points that I’ve always made to people but now we can say, ‘Well you know, we want to be sure we are handling our rollout or our messaging in such a way that we don’t have this kind of gap.’” Wainger published several blog posts on her firm’s site about the leadership communications failures after the health site went live.

In a series of interviews, public relations and messaging consultants were nearly unanimous in saying the White House failed a cardinal rule of crisis communications: Own up to the problems — and fast.

The troubles with Healthcare.gov started cropping up the first day – but the administration downplayed them as little more than “glitches” and attributed the bugs to an overwhelming number of people trying to access the site. As late as Oct. 9, White House Spokesperson Jay Carney was still calling the problems a result of “the fact that the interest has been even greater than we expected.”

Obama himself reportedly didn’t know the extent of the problems until at least one week into the launch. It took the administration nearly two weeks to fully realize that the woes went beyond volume and start adjusting their message. It wasn’t until more than three weeks after Oct. 1- an eternity in crisis management, experts said – that Obama conceded during an address in the Rose Garden that there was “No excuse for these problems” and took responsibility for what had happened.

The president did not help himself when his repeated claims of “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it” turned out to be incorrect. The administration tried to push back by saying that those with cancelled policies could sign up for new and better plans. But not until Nov. 7 did Obama issue a mea culpa for the cancelled policies and attempted a quick fix to let people stay on their plans.